


lights fade but i won't let them

by queenwithoutacrown



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-03 00:35:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12737472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenwithoutacrown/pseuds/queenwithoutacrown
Summary: It had been only two full days and nights and it might be overreacting on his part.(Or: Karen gets sick and Frank has to deal with it.)





	lights fade but i won't let them

 

_You're dead to me._

_I'm already dead._

 

*

 

He never forgot it, the justified anger on her face, the tears in her eyes, the blood on her forehead dripping into her messy hair. The memory was all clouded in darkness and shadows, but she's as bright in it as the morning star.

Nobody could ever forget the wrath of Karen Page, like an angel going to war.

Even if his brain was a mess most days,

He knew she ain't a saint, a familiar darkness was clinging to her as well. The demons tormenting her would probably go out for drinks with his own.

Rationally, he knew he had to keep his distance. But logic had long ceased to have any meaning for him. Logic relied on statistics and statistically he shouldn't be running around at night drenched in blood.

He couldn't let go of the one person who didn't see the monster.

He couldn't endanger the only person with a beating heart he cared about.

So they kept their distance from each other, sort of.

She would walk home in the middle of the night, coat hugged tight around her petite frame, while he stood above the rooftops to make sure she arrived home safely as if he was some twisted sort of bodyguard.

Sometimes she even looked up and he imagined a smile on her lips.

Winter turned to spring and the lonelier her felt all the more her reduced the miles between them. He sat on her fire escape at her new apartment and waited for a rain storm to pass. The window opened and Karen held a plate with cookies and a cup of coffee his way.

She started leaving out a thermos bottle full of coffee and different sorts of sweets a lot more afterwards, as if he was fucking Santa Claus. Never complained about it though.

One night she left him a burner phone with a single number saved in the contacts. And the distance shrunk even more. During the boring moments she kept him company, her smile transcending even the screen of the old, worn Nokia. Laughed about his hair growing long and into locks. Laughed even more at the terrible hipster beard he kept for appearances' sake.

Laying low didn't look good on him.

But there was one line he wouldn't cross, red tape or not. The inside of her apartment was off limits. He wouldn't shatter that world as well, her only safe haven from the storm she walked out into every morning.

Everything he touched was tainted with the stench of blood and decay. He wouldn't ruin that for her. Nobody deserved that and especially not Karen Page.

He just wasn't prepared to remember all the memories he had pushed back so far in his mind, covered in dust and long forgotten.

Particularly not this:

Caring meant living with the fear of losing everything.

 

*

 

It had been only two full days and nights and it might be overreacting on his part.

But Frank would never disregard his gut instinct ever again. Her answers to his texts came sporadically and were brief, if anything.

Karen often got like that when she was close to a deadline with Ellison breathing down her neck. He tried to be even less of a disturbance then. But something felt off and it caused him to break the one rule he had set out to withstand everything.

Frank picked the lock on the window and opened it wide enough for him to climb through. The smell of chamomile was prominent in the air of the kitchen. For just a split second it took him back to a time in which he'd still been the father of children with problems as simple as stomach pains, when tea had been the answer to everything.

The curtains were drawn on almost every window and even though the sun shone bright the apartment was left in shadows. There were no dishes in the sink, only some bags of chamomile tea next to the coffee maker.

He heard muted noises coming from behind a closed door. It sounded like the radio or TV, but he wouldn't take his chances. Frank pulled his gun out of his cargo pants and crept up. He broke open the door and lifted his gun.

Unnecessarily, as it turned out.

Karen lay in the bed, wrapped in countless blankets. Her eyes stared at him wide-eyed, her own hands wrapped around her gun and pointing at him. She looked exhausted, pale, sweaty skin and glassy eyes. She lowered the gun 

"Frank, what are you doing here?"

"You need a better alarm system," he said instead of what he actually wanted to say to her. _I was scared shitless something might have happened to you._ "What's wrong with you?"

"Caught some evil strain of the flu, it seems. I'm running a fever and moving hurts. Probably getting my period early as well." Apparently the look on his face was dumbfounded enough for her to go on talking. "Believe it or not, periods aren't timed by atomic clocks."

He pointed at the bucket next to her bed. "What's that for?"

"Duh. Not for mopping the floor, Sherlock."

There were at least four different mugs standing on her bedside table and on the floor next to the bed. Some of them were still half-full. The whole bedroom gave off the feeling of a sick bay.

"When was the last time you ate something?"

"Uh." Karen looked anywhere but at him. "Don't feel like eating. My stomach hurts too much anyway. Just gonna sit this one out." She shrugged.

The alarm bells in his head went off and ringed so loud he thought Red was currently beating the shit out of him and it was all a hallucination. But Karen drenched in sweat, her eyes hollow, was very very real.

He sank down at the mattress of her bed, almost falling off the edge. Invading her privacy hadn't been on his agenda today. But she hadn't yelled at him to get his sorry ass out of her bedroom yet.

"I'm going to pull up your shirt now," he announced, to give her time to decline his proposition. Karen nodded her consent, though she looked confused.

Frank bunched up the fabric of her t-shirt, noticing how soft it felt between his calloused fingers and shoved it towards her chest area. He tried to overlook her partial nakedness, because this sure as hell wasn't appropriate. Still, he took two deep breaths before continuing.

He drew a straight line from her navel to her hipbone, right above the waistline of her pyjama shorts, then estimated one third of it and rested his fingertips lightly. He ignored the heat radiating from her, the slight shiver running through her body.

"This might hurt, okay? Sorry in advance."

"What are you doing?"

"Medic in my company told us this magic trick once when it was one of us. Never thought I'd actually get to use it though."

He pressed his index finger into her abdomen, right where he thought the offender to be.

Karen bit down on her lips. "Ouch."

Then Frank let go. She hissed out in pain and her face twisted uncomfortably, a tear leaving the corner of her eyes. "Fuck that. This is worse."

He quickly wiped away the stray tear without a single word. It felt unpleasant to cause her any discomfort, he wanted to see make her feel better, as contradictory as that sounded from The Punisher's mouth.

Karen's jaw dropped open slightly, but he couldn't deal with that right now. The wheels in his head were turning, working overtime trying to find a way to not let this end in jail and on the front pages of every newspaper for them.

"Come on ma'am, we're gonna make a nice little trip to the hospital. Can you get up yourself?"

"Wait," Karen put up her hands in defensiveness, "I feel like I think I missed some important part of this conversation."

"You don't have the flu. That right there, that's McBurney's point." Frank gestured at the point where he'd just touched her. He swore he could still feel the warmth of her body on his hands. He shook his head in a vain attempt to find some clarity.

"Tenderness there indicates an acute appendicitis. That rebound tenderness you felt when I let go got a fancy name too, but they shot that out of my brain, I guess. Look, I'm not a white coat, but even I can tell that you need to go to the hospital."

Realization started to dawn on her face and brought fear with it. "You sure?"

"Wouldn't wanna risk it, Karen. Please."

"I've been shot at so many times I stopped counting, was framed for murder and have been kidnapped and I'm still alive. I don't want some ruptured unnecessary organ to break my record of immortality, huh?"

"C'mon, let me help you up." Frank wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her upright wit the utmost care. Standing like this, her head looking up at him, it would be so easy to kiss her and soothe her worries. Instead he kept his hands around her upper body, until she was steady enough. Karen packed a few necessities from her wardrobe and bathroom, and Frank picked up her car keys. 

Karen pointed at him and shook her head. 

"I'll make it alone, Dr. Castle."

"No you won't."

"You can't walk into a public place like this, Frank. Somebody will recognize you and call the cops."

"Nobody's going to recognize me like this." He stroke his beard and it earned him a soft laugh from her. "There's not a single bruise on my face right now. That's what people remember from my trial. Not some hipster taking care of his friend."

He didn't know if he was comforting Karen or himself.

Karen obviously still was unconvinced, but let him lead the way.

 

 

*

 

The ER was quite full given the late afternoon hour, but the hospitals in Hell's Kitchen always were. The nurses were quite skilled at sorting symptoms. Karen's pale complexion and her pained expression certainly helped speed up matters and landed them an exam room fast. 

Her attending physician was so young, Frank was sure he must've started med school during her kindergarten years. But he didn't care, he only wanted him to help Karen.

Baby doctor eyed him suspiciously, the beard and hoodie combination not the trustworthiest outfit he had ever worn. As long as he didn't identify him as one of New York's less charitable vigilantes, he gave an rat's ass about the guy's opinion. 

"We have some rules and it's family members only, so ---" He coughed slightly.

"I'm her husband."

His mouth had already said the words before his brain had any time to catch up. White noise rushed through his head. A bitter taste, like blood, filled his mouth. It felt like chewing on nails, iron and copper.

He'd never thought he would ever say those words again, ever describe himself like that again.

_Husband._

A hand on his wrist brought him back to reality and the shock on Karen's face mimicked his own. Frank tried to get it under control, somehow. He had dug himself that grave all on his own and he couldn't blow their cover and risk her safety because he had a fucking panic attack.

He had never touched her so much before like in the last few hours. Sometimes their fingers would brush when she handed him their coffee mugs through the window or they'd bump shoulder while sitting out on the fire escape. But never for long, the moments always fleeting, never on purpose.

Frank could feel something break around his heart, the walls he had erected with his bare hands crumbling to dust and ash.

"You know, this is the first time we need to take the 'in sickness and in health' part of our vows literal since we eloped. We only got married two months ago and we're still in the honeymoon period of it all." Karen flashed him and the doctor a genuine smile, probably meant to soothe him and he thought it might even work.

Her breathing was deep and strong, almost if she was breathing for him, as if she taught him how to breath again.

She was a fantastic actress, rambling a little bit too much maybe, but it gave it all the perfect vibe of nervousness expected in such a situation. Listening to her talk about a marriage that didn't exists, but involved him in one of the two starring roles froze the blood in his veins, but he took deep breaths, like Karen showed him to.

The storm inside his head, inside his heart, calmed.

Time moved strangely fast. A nurse helped baby doc with the blood sample and the other exams, but in the end they arrived at the same conclusion Frank had drawn in her apartment already. Including preparing her for surgery.

"Maybe you should switch to medicine," Karen whispered, winking at him. Worry still clouded her eyes. He let his thumb swipe over her pulse point, relishing in the steady beat of her heart. He hoped it eased her mind as much as his.

It wasn't her job to be considerate of his damn issues.

Not when she was about to be wheeled into the OR and not ever.

Karen filled out a lot of paper work, got an unflattering hospital gown and a sedative to calm her nerves.

The highlight of this godforsaken day, if you asked Frank.

He immediately noticed the effect the medication had on her. Her speech was slurred and her facial muscles finally relaxed. "I feel like floating on candy cotton," she giggled.

"Because you're high, ma'am." 

"It's hot when you call me ma'am." Frank froze, but Karen didn't realize it, she simply kept talking. "I'm sorry you had to lie about the husband thing. For me of all people."

"Not a big deal. Especially not for you, of all people."

"It is," Karen sighed, hesitated. "I wish I could've met your family. I'm sure they were wonderful." 

He almost couldn't deal with this kind of brutal honesty, his heart clenching in his chest. 

"Just get better again. Hell's Kitchen's vigilantes need you." 

"You need me too?"

And he nodded wordlessly. 

_Yes._

 

*

 

He asked the nurse at the station for the direction to the coffee vending machine. He was in dire need of some caffeine, fast. Idly sitting around went against every single instinct he inhabited in his body.

The brown-haired woman with the greying roots smiled at him, readily explaining him the way. She couldn't know who she was talking to or otherwise she'd have run for the hills already. It felt weird, pretending to be just a common citizen instead of installing the fear of death in people.

"Your wife will be fine. It's a routine procedure," she concluded.

Frank shook like a leaf all the way down to get his coffee. Going to the carousel with Maria and the kids that day should've been routine as well and he had been the only one to back then.

Or a shell of himself.

It felt wrong.

For a multitude of reasons.

_Your wife._

Problem was, he didn't mind calling Karen his wife, pretend or not. And he didn't deserve that.

So he downed the cup of coffee, got another one and headed back up. In a moment of martyrdom he fished Karen's phone out of his pockets and texted the lawyers. She'd be happy about them visiting.

He'd survive.

As long as she was okay.

He never thought that an appendectomy would be the reason for his undoing. 

 

*

 

Her blonde hair was fanned out all over the white pillow, her chest rising softly. The heart monitor chronicling every single heartbeat of hers calmed him to no end. He should get one for her for always. She looked well enough, still hooked up on IV lines and other devices, but fine. She was even awake 

Frank sat on the uncomfortable chair, barely able to keep his eyes open. He was so tired, but he couldn't fall asleep now. Karen tried to sit up, but failed ultimately. He offered her his hand to 

"Be careful or you'll pull your stitches."

"Rich coming from a man who bleeds on my fire escape on a regular basis." Her voice was still low and sounded tired. 

"I don't do that ever. I only come around after the worst has healed."

Karen nodded absently, almost philosophically. "Figured. How much shit did I say before the surgery? I barely remember anything."

"Wasn't so bad," he deflected. 

_It's hot when you call me ma'am._

_I'm sure they were wonderful._

A knock on the door pulled him out of his reverie. He turned around and groaned in defeat at the sight of Red and Foggy. 

"Look, I texted your asshole friends and they actually came."

The two seemed to ignore his remark. The looks on their faces told him enough. They weren't happy to see him here, less of all sitting so close to Karen. But Karen smiled warmly at them, so he it felt less like a chore.

"Play nice," she mumbled. He didn't know if she meant him or them.

"The nurse outside said something about that adorable, devoted husband of yours," Foggy said a little uncomfortably. Frank shot him a look that made him take a step back. Then he directed his gaze at Murdock.

If Red said a single wrong word now he'd murder him without hesitation, no questions asked. There was a fine line and if that Catholic altar boy crossed it, he'd ---

"Got a strict family members only rule," Karen yawned. She grasped his hand even tighter, as if she could read his thoughts. "Don't laugh."

Even in her state she could sound like an authority and she had the last word. He wouldn't leave this room, not even if the Spanish Inquisition came storming in. He wouldn't let go of her hand.

"I'm glad you are alright, Karen." Matt said with that unnerving even-tempered voice of his. 

"Could you maybe call off your watchdog?" Foggy asked.

If Frank growled at him then, it was entirely accidental. "Scared?"

"Of you, always." 

"Barking dogs don't bite," Karen said.

Frank pocked her in the shoulder. "Excuse you." 

"Of course we're all trembling with fear, the big bad Punisher is right here." 

"I don't think you show me the respect I deserve."

"Please, I could crush you in the palm of my hand." Karen yawned again and he didn't know if it was the fatigue or the remains of the narcotics in her bloodstream talking, but he raised an eyebrow and smirked at her. 

Murdock and Nelson stood still and watched in silence.

He also didn't care about their opinion.

 

*

 

Moonlight spilled through sheer curtains, a world in white and cold blue. The sleep deprivation showed its ugly face. Frank's trigger finger twitched against his thigh, uneasiness taking over control of his body. The last few days had been filled with a heavy workload and it took its toll. Combined with the stress of the last hours and his constant worry, he was about to crash.

But he couldn't sleep.

He couldn't leave. 

His hand still held Karen's, like she was the anchor, the lifeline.

He couldn't risk ---

"I care about you, I'm so sorry," he whispered into the darkness of the room. Confessions had lost their touch for him long ago, but this one felt like salvation.

"Guessed that from the look on your face."

He lifted his gaze from his shoes to her face and was rewarded with half-opened eyes and her tired smile. The moonlight blurred her edges. The whole moment felt unreal.

"How are you feeling?"

"Better than you look hopefully. You can leave if have somewhere else to be, I won't hold it against you."

"I don't want to leave. Not right now."

The two sides inside him faced off against each other, fighting a war for dominance. The need to be with her and the need to keep her safe from him were equally matched. 

Karen won.

Didn't she always?

He leaned forward and placed a soft kiss at her cheek. It was a bravery born out of the gentle darkness around them, masquerading all their demons, but he wanted this, wanted her, more than anything else.

His lips barely touched her skin, but it felt like burning alive, lightning a flame that had been extinguished so long ago. He'd stay if she'd have him.

Frank held his forehead close to her temple and just breathed in. "I know your surgery today nobody's fault. But one day you might land in the ER and it'll be mine and you'll be gone, because of me."

"Don't take away my agency, please." Every single of her words reverberated in his skull.

"I won't. But I'm a dangerous man with powerful enemies."

"I can handle it."

Her breathing evened, until he was sure Karen was asleep again. His head stayed at her shoulder, hands still grasped together. He hoped she'd still remember this conversation the following morning. No, he was sure she would. 

Finally, finally, Morpheus took pity on him and pulled him into a deep, peaceful sleep.

And maybe this was the best disguise?

Because who'd guess that Frank Castle could care, could love still?

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Title: Holding Onto Heavy - Foxes  
> Tumblr: qqueenwithoutacrown
> 
> I have had a huge writer's block for a very long time now, so me writing so much in such a short time is not typical for me. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Once again, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Thank you for reading.


End file.
